OPEC to slash December output

December 1, 2008

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By , TEHRAN, December 1 – The Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) will cut its December production by a "good amount," its secretary general Abdalla Salem El-Badri told reporters on Monday.

"We can\’t say how much the output cut will be in December but for sure there will be an action because we\’re seeing that stocks are high," he said, adding that the cut would be a "good amount."

OPEC, which pumps 40 percent of the world\’s crude and which is suffering from declining oil prices, decided at a meeting Saturday in Cairo to freeze its output quota.

But any further decision regarding the cut will be decided at an upcoming meeting in Oran, Algeria on December 17.

"The price of 75 USD (US dollars) is reasonable but our outlook is for between 70 to 90 USD per barrel," El-Badri said in the Iranian capital, where he is attending an oil and gas seminar.

He has said over the weekend that he does not expect oil prices to recover before the middle of next year.

OPEC has already slashed output twice this year by a total of two million barrels per day in response to falling prices but fears of a global downturn continued to push prices lower.

Crude prices are down by more than 60 percent from record peaks of above 147 dollars seen in July